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I'm not a drummer; I don't even play one on TV.  As a matter of fact, drum sticks are as foreign to me as chop sticks.  I've truly had a love hate relationship with drums.  I love a crisp kicking drum beat, but it has always been a stumbling block in my recording experience. Mic'ing a drum kit in my situation has never truly been a viable option, especially since I can't play the most basic of beats.  Loop CD's were great at first, but you are rather limited as to the tempo you have available, not to mention every loop has subtle differences where they often sound like a different kit on every other loop.   Drum machines I have owned in past left me wanting more control and an easier, visual way to lay out parts.  The obvious solution for me was some form of virtual drummer.

I've tried Battery.  Of course, I had to add my own samples for it to trigger.  Much to my chagrin with Battery, there were no MIDI files included and my knowledge and ability to program drums is virtually nil.  Then I bought the Big Boy; BFD by FXpansion.   BFD is a nice program, but it is truly recorded dry as a bone with no processing whatsoever.  While it allows for fully customizing your own drum sound, adding in a degree of 'drum engineering ignorance' and you are right back to zero.  I've spent hours tweaking each individual drum sound in BFD and never really got the results I was looking for.  BFD's groove librarian, while quite vast, is not very user friendly.  I don't really know what to expect if I load a file called 'down tempo 4' or 'HRfill 2.'

I had read and researched a lot online about EZdrummer by Toontrack.  It sounded great in theory, an out of the box, ready to use drum program, but its tiny price tag, $165 or so, left me very skeptical.  Finally after growing tired of cymbals choking out early, I decided to give it a try.

I received my copy of EZdrummer two days later.  Opening the box to find no manual and one single DVD, again I found myself skeptical.  The DVD contains a brief PDF manual, PC installers, and a MAC installer.  I took a quick look through the 'read me' file and installed it on my machine.  Once installed, you have to authorize EZdrummer via the ToonTrack website.  This screen only comes up when you open your host program and load EZdrummer as a plug-in.  Protools users take note!  You have to download a patch from the ToonTrack website for the RTAS version to be installed on your machine.  Protools will not recognize it until you do, and you can't authorize it until you get the patch.

I decided while I was at ToonTrack's website, to go ahead and download a session template to route each output from EZdrummer to its own channel in Protools.  I opened the session, loaded EZdrummer, and waited patiently while it loaded its default kit to RAM.  267MB total was loaded to my 2 GB of RAM and I was ready to go.  The GUI on EZdrummer looks great.  It's a drummer's perspective of a drum kit and hardware.  The MIDI library is located on the bottom of the screen and the mixer is slightly to the left of kit.  Changing out individual drum kit pieces or cymbals is available right on the drum click with a single click.  It also has a 'humanize' button which adds a bit of variation to the playing styles.  This, like a real drummer, varies the velocity on the drum hits.
EZ Drummer by Toontrack
Without further adieu, let's open that MIDI library.  The library is laid out in simple to understand fashion.  Pick a genre (Pop, Rock, Funk, Motown, etc), pick a groove (about 25 per genre), then pick a variation of the groove.  The variations range from the most simple of 4/4 beats to crazy variations.  You really know what to expect with the library as the variations are actually labeled like: 'Hat's 4th Hard Closed? or 'Ride 8th Middle'.  It's pretty intuitive even for a drum simpleton like me.  You obviously have fills available and they also range from simple to very complex fills.  One huge benefit for me is the fills are labeled to cover everything from an entire measure to half a measure, down to a quarter of a bar.  You know, by reading, how long your fill will be.  Want a quick turn around to spice up a straight 4/4 rock loop, its there.  Want a complex full measure fill to use as an intro or outro, its there.  Of course, if you want more, plug in your favorite MIDI controller and tap out your own MIDI files, import MIDI files from other programs or grab your pencil tool and start writing the little blue dots in.

When you click on a MIDI file in the library, it automatically plays so you know what you're getting.  If you like it, simply drag it over to your instrument track in Pro Tools.  Duplicate it a few times with the edit menu; drag a fill from the browser.  Repeat until you get your entire drum track laid out.  It truly is EZ (pardon the pun)!

How's it sound?  In a word, awesome!  The drums really seem to come to life in my tracks now.  Possibly more importantly to me though, recording is now fun again.  I bring in a great sounding file and instead of spending hours tweaking a top snare microphone.  I can get ideas down quickly and then work out full arrangements. This was done in about 4 minutes after I installed the program:
ezdemo.mp3
In closing, I want to reiterate the fact that this program does exactly what the company tells you it is going to do.  Great sounding drums, right out of the box.  Extremely usable MIDI files, right out of the box.  In my opinion, it's the perfect companion for the home recordist who wants great sounding pop or rock drums on their tracks.  It's easy to use interface is a cinch to get the hang of and expansion packs are quickly coming out for even more drum kits.